Penguin Mail – open-source Rust email client for Linux with AI

penguin-mail.com
kavourias
4 hours ago
71points
28 comments

Comments

slipheen•2 hours ago
That's a very nice looking app - I like the look of it it gives me Mail.app vibes.

A mail client is always a tough thing to get right so I'm glad you're working on one

I love then idea that as the total cost (time/money/attention) of personalizing software continues to come down, more people will be able to encourage a diaspora of options, tailored to each niche.

cosmic_cheese•1 hour ago
Visually it resembles Mail.app, but if it’s going for a similar level of functionality I think modern GNOME’s hamburger-and-three-dots-buttons approach to menus is going to become a problem.

This is one of those types of app that really benefits from a proper menubar with several top-level menus so the user isn’t stuck spelunking submenu tunnels.

wewewedxfgdf•32 minutes ago
The industry standard wording is to suffix the headline with "written in Rust".
mburns•10 minutes ago
[delayed]
tlhunter•2 hours ago
Does anyone remember Sparrow?

I like the idea of a native Linux email client. The UI looks pretty good too. It's really not hard to beat thunderbird.

Calling it version 1.0 is bullshit though. It's only about a month old: https://github.com/c9dev/penguin-mail/graphs/contributors?al...

A project with the complexity of an email client cannot be considered stable in a month. There are bugs that will only show up after a year. It has a calendar after all.

fooqux•22 minutes ago
> The UI looks pretty good too. It's really not hard to beat thunderbird.

I don't understand this mentality. It's an email client. There's not a lot needed UI-wise to make a functioning interface. Display a list of emails, show the full message when you open it, etc. I don't see anything functionally different between this email app and basically every other one I've ever used.

You've either got insane standards or are using email way different than I.

Georgelemental•16 minutes ago
Thunderbird still doesn't have proper threading
fooqux•4 minutes ago
From an engineering standpoint, I get it.

But from a normal user's standpoint? I don't care. If my email client needs more than a single thread, something's fucked.

I randomly bounce between Thunderbird and KMail and honestly I can't tell the difference except cosmetically. Both are snappy. Neither crash. Both send and receive emails just fine.

Grombobulous•2 hours ago
1. Being released on GitHub for a month does not mean it’s a month old.

2. Seems odd to assume instability by default without evidence.

rainingmonkey•2 hours ago
Have you ever experienced stable-by-default?

If so, I'd love to hear a writeup!

Grombobulous•2 hours ago
Well, I'm trying it out and it seems stable.

It's missing some features that are dealbreakers for me, but I haven't found anything unstable yet.

johannes1234321•26 minutes ago
So it's probably missing features which should make a good 1.0 mailer.
tamimio•1 hour ago
Tested on fastmail, here’s few notes from 10min impression:

- can’t choose a sender email?! This is major dealbreaker, if you have many aliases or domains.

- no favico for emails, this is also a deal breaker for me, as I used it to quickly skim and find or check new emails.

- folders orders is messed up, trying to arrange them made it worse

- trying to color a folder and it says “server doesn’t support that”

Also the UI needs more polishing overall.

kstrauser•4 minutes ago
> - can’t choose a sender email?! This is major dealbreaker, if you have many aliases or domains.

Ugh, this drives me nuts. It's the same reason why I stopped using my Supernote Nomad for email.

I use iCloud+ email with a custom domain. With that arrangement you authenticate to Apple's servers with your iCloud "primary address", like someone.somename@icloud.com. Then you can send and receive email with your custom domain email address, which is the one you're actually using. But not with Supernote, or apparently Penguin Mail. My Nomad will only send mail with my @icloud.com address, even though that's only used for authentication.

So yeah, I just stopped using it altogether. That's not my address. It's not how people reach me. It's literally just a username.

LilBytes•36 minutes ago
Thank you for testing on Fastmail for us.

I'll stick with the web UI in that case. Are you using any other clients on Mac or Linux?

tamimio•19 minutes ago
I am using their official linux client, which is basically the web one in app form with notifications.
hedgehog•2 hours ago
This is interesting, I am doing an experimental effort with similar goals. What is your approach to testing? The bug surface of something like this is quite large. Also, do you have a plan for sandboxing?
SchemaLoad•2 hours ago
Sandboxing should be handled externally by something like Flatpak
h4kunamata•2 hours ago
I was 100% interested until crossing "...with AI".
Topology1•1 hour ago
If you took the time to read, it is an optional feature and uses local models.
OJFord•1 hour ago
Then my 'amail' client seems to fit the bill.. (OSS, rust, I use it on Linux and haven't tested elsewhere) ..not really suggesting it – it's pretty barebones and just whatever I've needed, but you're welcome to it obviously! Especially if you have issues/PRs to spur me on to features I've wanted too...
billybuckwheat•2 hours ago
Same here. While I'd rather not have an embedded AI chat window, is there a way to disable it?
TingPing•1 hour ago
The homepage says “off by default”
ranger_danger•2 hours ago
Surprised to see a new (large) GTK app, especially in Rust.

Can this be compiled for other operating systems than Linux?

comex•12 minutes ago
It's vibecoded - new, large codebases are par for the course.

(This used to come at the cost of code quality, but increasingly does not.)

mal10c•1 hour ago
[dead]
kavourias•4 hours ago
[flagged]